


i feel your sorrow chasing tomorrow

by silpium



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, a bit of angst but not much...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 05:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11639607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silpium/pseuds/silpium
Summary: It’s quiet for a long, long time, and it might be minutes or hours before Hinata finally works up the guts to speak.“I… want to be invincible again. It feels like maybe we never even were, but I want to feel that way, at least. We came so close to being at the top again this year, and after last year, it—I know you have to fail to improve, sometimes, but we’ve already made it, y’know? And it feels like… like we’re just declining. Like this is all ‘the top’ will ever be for us. And it scares me.” There’s a shaky fear mingled with desperate determination in his voice, like a fire fighting against a gale and all other odds, fighting just to exist.





	i feel your sorrow chasing tomorrow

They lose just before they get to nationals, their second year. 

It’s by the skin of their teeth that they don’t win. A deuce in the tie-breaking set of the game that would decide the final matchup—and something about just how _close_ they were makes it all the more crushing, even moreso with their win the year before that was just as close as their loss this year.

Hinata doesn’t speak after the final whistle is blown. There’s none of the burning anger or outpouring sadness of the Seijoh match, like everything within him has simply wilted. He doesn’t spare a glance at Kageyama as Ennoshita leads the team back to the bus, although he sits with Kageyama without a thought on the painstaking ride back to Karasuno. The distance between them seems so much more than the little space left between them in the cramped bus seat, their legs bumping with each pothole in the road.

By now, Kageyama knows enough to know not to push Hinata when he’s like this. It eats at him just as their loss does (to douse Hinata’s fire takes something unimaginable), but he _has_ changed at least a little since their first year. Enough to bite his tongue and wait for when Hinata is ready, because that’s what he needs right now. Just like everyone else has grown, he’s more than the insensitive king he was then.

Their walk home is quiet, and the jingling of Hinata’s bike alongside the rhythm of their footsteps in the gentle veneer of snow ring through the silent night. Hinata still won’t look at him. His eyes are trained on the ground, the repeating imprint of their shoes in the snow, like it’ll award him with some resounding realization if he just focuses hard enough. A poetic, miraculous answer to whatever questions are rattling around in his head and leaving him deafeningly quiet.

His answer doesn’t come by the time they part, and Kageyama watches Hinata go his own way. Something about watching Hinata’s back fade into the murky twilight as the stars hang alone in the sky tugs at his heart and almost pulls his voice right out of his throat; but it stays boxed up just the same as it has since the whistle’s shrillness cut through the stadium.

The next morning, the sun is gentle, coaxing the snow that covers the grass into twinkling. It’s just cold enough for Kageyama to see his breath appear and fade into the air, to bring the blood up to redden his cheeks, but it’s an unassuming chill, the kind that comes with its own unique warmth. 

There’s a tug at his heart just like last night’s, though, a kind of hollowness that reigns even as the world around him awakens and comes to life. When he feels another little pull at his heart, one that wants to guide his feet, he listens to it and finds himself at a prairie, the one Hinata dragged him to when they saw fireworks together during their first year. _This is my favorite place to go whenever I just need to cool off, y’know?_ he’d said, sheepish little grin on his face. _There’s just something special about it, I think. That’s what it feels like, anyway. I know it’s kind of stupid, but…_

There’s this soft lining of snow sparkling like stars as it hides within the grass and its tiny, budding blossoms fighting to burst through the cold. Somehow, Kageyama’s not surprised to see Hinata there, lying in the center of the prairie as he watches the clouds roll by. He’s got this look of quiet contemplation on his face, something more than the emptiness of last night, but still something far enough from _Hinata_ that it bothers Kageyama.

So he lets his feet lead him into the prairie next to Hinata and lies down beside him. Hinata doesn't speak, still, only sparing a glance at him before turning back to the clouds. It’s silent for a long, long time, and it might be minutes or hours before Hinata finally works up the guts to speak.

“I… want to be invincible again. It feels like maybe we never even were, but I want to feel that way, at least. We came so close to being at the top again this year, and after last year, it—I know you have to fail to improve, sometimes, but we’ve already made it, y’know? And it feels like… like we’re just declining. Like this is all ‘the top’ will ever be for us. And it scares me, and I just—I don’t know, I want to feel like how we did when we were first-years.” There’s a shaky fear mingled with desperate determination in his voice, like a fire fighting against a gale and all other odds, fighting just to exist. The croaky crackling to his voice cuts through the air like a heat wave. 

Even in the cold of the prairie, Kageyama feels positively burned by Hinata’s words, the rawness of them so similar yet so different from the Seijoh match and any other match they’ve faced. It stings him, the severity of what Hinata’s going through, if _this_ is what’s been rolling around in his head since that last whistle was blown.

Kageyama takes a breath, lets himself defrost. Momentarily, he swears he tastes the dryness of smoke mingled in with the sweetness of the winter-spring air.

“I still think... that we’re invincible,” he tries haltingly, and sees Hinata’s face scrunch up from the corner of his eye. It’s not the most encouraging sign he’s ever gotten from Hinata, but there’s this importance hanging on what he has to say that seems disastrous to abandon. 

“We were never _really_ invincible,” he continues, and he can just _feel_ Hinata’s emotions flare. “Not in the literal sense of the word, anyway. Not in the face of Seijoh, or Nekoma, or Fukurodani—they beat us more times than I can count, but I think that’s exactly what makes us invincible.”

Hinata sits up, then, and looks down at Kageyama, the question written all over his face. _Invincible because we kept losing_ , Kageyama can just about hear him say, teasing and warm. _Are you sure you’re using that word right?_

But Hinata’s not in the same place as he usually is, and that aside doesn’t come. So Kageyama lets the words spill out, despite how he tries to temper them. “‘Invincible’ is being able to get back up no matter what. ‘Invincible’ is that drive to always win and be _better_ in the face of a pile of losses—invincible is… the best word to describe you. Or us, I guess.” 

He takes a halting breath, keeps his eyes on the clouds passing of every shape and size, refuses to look at Hinata, whose reaction he can’t even gauge right now. “It’s just that now the ‘top’ isn’t the same as it was last year. The bar’s been raised a little higher now, and we weren’t ready for it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t reach it again or that we’re weaker just ‘cause others improved more than us. The only thing that ensures you’ll never make it is if you stop trying.”

Hinata’s gaping at Kageyama like he’s never taken a breath before in his life, but Kageyama doesn’t let himself stop. “So that’s—the way to still be invincible is just to keep going on the path you’ve always been on, since middle school and throughout our first year. _That’s_ invincibility, idiot, and you’ve always had it.”

Kageyama’s flustered, feeling those hot little pinpricks of anxiety popping all over his skin, because, ugh, he can’t believe he just drivelled on like that, but… Hinata’s smiling at him with a fire in his eyes burning, like the rebirth of a prairie from the ashes of itself, and there’s a beauty in it that Kageyama can’t tear his eyes from. 

“When did you become so eloquent, huh, Kageyama?” Hinata asks, light, himself again. He follows it less jokingly with a “Thank you, though. I really needed to hear that, and it”—he fidgets a bit—“means a lot to me. To, uhm, hear that from you, I mean.”

There’s a dull burn in Kageyama’s chest at that, a mix of warmth and embarrassment and deep-rooted affection like a few dying embers. It’s a nice feeling, he thinks, but one that unsettles him a bit in how strange it feels. “Of course, dumbass. You’re important to the team, so we can’t have you questioning stuff like that when you’re the most invincible person on the team. With or without me.”

“Yeah, but don’t you feel more invincible when we’re together? I know I do,” And Hinata’s looking at him with big, round eyes, a genuine question, and Kageyama…

“Duh, idiot. We’re partners, aren’t we?” Kageyama hears himself say against that kindling embarrassment in his chest, and the beaming smile Hinata gives him makes it erupt into a roaring flame that Kageyama is sure could set this prairie alight for an early rebirth.

“Yeah,” Hinata whispers, airy enough that it feels like it could vanish into the sky like smoke. “We’re partners.”

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by the lovely [clem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luciferTM/pseuds/luciferTM)!
> 
> thank you so much for reading, as always! please feel free to comment with criticism or otherwise—anything is appreciated!
> 
> i'm also on twitter @hhatsunetsu if you wanna chat!!


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